"Akira, you are back!" Zuko said and hugged him "How was it on Asokoh?"
"Oh pretty boring, you know just old geezers and army stuff. I was handling the reconstruction of an old harbour and production of warships" Akira said.
"My son, you are back" Iroh came walking into the garden.
"Hello father" Amira said and hugged him. Even through he kind of neglected him Iroh was still a good guy and full of widsdom.
"Do you want to come in for a tea? It's awfully hot out here" Iroh said.
"I can't say no to that offer" Amira said. Drinking tea had somehow become a ritual for their family after Naemi, his mother died.
She loved drinking jasmine tea and brewed them a tea almost every day when they were in the palace.
"I'll also come" Zuko said and followed them to their red japanese styled mansion.
"You know, Azula trained herself to madness trying to catch up to you. Recently she even beat her instructor who ran away crying later" Zuko said to him.
"Expected of that little monster" Akira said "just let her be she'll never catch up to me"
"It frustrates me with what ease you and Azula seemed to learn firebending while I struggle with everything...I can't do some things that Azula was already be able to do when she was 8 years old...and I'm older than you both" Zuko lamented "Father must be dissapointed with me"
"You really shouldn't try to impress your father, it will only bring you pain and misery in the end and you know the thing I like about you the most is that you are very different from Azula" Akira said "she is cold and cruel but you have something that most in the fire nation do not have. Deep inside you you already know what is right and wrong and you don't just follow the others. One day you will let go of your desire to impress your father and forge your own path"
"You are wrong, I will give my best to impress my farther and earn my place at his side" Zuko said.
"Oh he isn't entirely wrong prince Zuko. Mabye one day you will understand what he told you today. My son is someone who earned my widsdom it seems I just wanted to say something similar hahahah" Iroh laughed and heated the tea with firebending and placed the tea leaves inside.
"I don't understand anything of the nonsense you two are talking about" Zuko said irritated.
"Not yet prince Zuko but one day you will realize that your destiny is different than just following in your father's footsteps" Iroh said and set up a game of pai cho.
"How about a revance my son, I won't loose again" Iroh said and Akira grinned and said "Don't cry after you loose old man"
They began playing and Iroh gavw them their tea.
"Haaaa nothing beats a good jasmine tea" Iroh sighed and blew his tea before taking a small sip.
They began playing and Akira eventually lost by a small margin while Zuko just waited on the side bored.
"Hey can you help me with my firebending? After all you are even better than Azula, mabye you can teach me something" Zuko asked after they were finished.
"Of course let's go to the training grounds" Akira said.
"be back for dinner" Iroh yelled after them as they ran to the training grounds.
"Alright, first show me what you can do" Akira said and Zuko performed one of the mid-tiers katas.
Akira constantly corrected him and showed him how to do it the right way and encouraged him from time to time to deal with his depression.
As it became dark they returned and immediately showered and went to sleep.
Akira would begin his flight training tomorrow morning.
...
The moment he woke up he quickly ate something and then started his normal physical training routine before moving on to the flying.
The first step was to control his leaps mid air and change directions so he took a big jump with what he almost reached ten metres thanks to his chi training and focused high intensity fire on his feet.
He immediately lost his balance mid flight and crashed to the ground.
Groaning he got up again "Ah this is going to get me a lot of bruises" he mumbled to himself and started the same movement again slowly getting better at his movements and increasing his output.
A week later he was able to glide and control his movement in mid air like a newly grown limb but he couldn't control the high intensity for true flight yet. If it wasn't for his enourmous chi pool he wouldn't be able to handle this output at all.
But slowly he got used to it and was finally able to fly freely in the air after a month of training.
After he archived that Azulons death was nowhere in sight so he moved to another technique he was curious about.
Combustion bending, the ability to send bombs out of his forehead...through it would be nice to be able to do that without that ugly tattoo.
He also finally recieved his katana made out of damascus steel it's beautiful wavy patterns making him fall in love with the weapon.
The sword had a black simple leather handle and scabbard depicting a black panther.
He put the sword inside his inventory to always have it at ready should he need it.
So he made his way to the royal library with restricted access and hidden knowlege and searched for information on combustion bending.
After a whole day of research he bareley got anything as the subject was rarely documented and users can be counted on one hand.
But thanks to his modern education in physica he understood the concept.
Combustion bending is in essence to compress your fire as much as possible and then shot it out of a focus point for the fire chi.
In theory it was easy but incredibly difficult to pull of.
The only good point is that because of his insane chi control he didn't need the tattoo, it acted like a crutch to help with shooting precisely.
His training was dangerous and only progressing very slowly but he was able to compress the fire better each time.
Like that almost a year has passed and he was able to create small explosions but not quite like combustion man.
But his time of peace was over. Just now the news of Lu Tens death reached the palace making him the crown prince.
Well he kind of already was but now he was next in line for the throne after Iroh.
Needlessly to say Iroh was devasted and entered a depressive state where he stared at the wall for hours with an empty gaze.
He had abandoned his siege of Ba Sing Se and returned in defeat.
It hurt Akira to see his father like this but he couldn't help him.
Now was the time to act.
He summoned his lightning bending guards and let them stand by and wait for Azulons death before they will act.
During this time his food was poisoned and he grew incredibly sick.
Luckily the dosage was to low and his body cured the poison on his own after a week.
From that point he never touched any of the food from the palace personel.
And then it happened. Azulon died and Ozais crowning was sheduled the next morning.
He waited until night arrived and went with his guards to attack the treasury under the palace.